Pine Plains Preschool closes

PINE PLAINS — The Pine Plains Preschool will not reopen its doors this fall. The school’s board has decided to dissolve the nearly 40-year-old institution.Jean Osofsky, who is on the board, said that one of the reasons for the closure was financial difficulties, but she declined to make further comments on the record. Osofsky said she plans to release more information to the public at a later date.The Pine Plains Preschool has been in operation as a New York charter school since the early 1970s.Marylyn Schmidt, who taught at the preschool for 35 years before she retired two years ago, said that the school’s main reason for closing was the sharp decline in attendance.“There wasn’t any problem with the school,” she said. “There were no children. It just got too difficult to keep it going.”Schmidt said that attendance was around 50 children at its heyday, but had declined to roughly seven students in recent years.Schmidt also said that the short hours of the school — only two-and-a-half hours per day — made the school less appealing to families with working parents.“People needed day care, too,” she said.Schmidt noted that many day cares have added preschool classes for the children, which teach the young students “readiness skills” to prepare them for kindergarten.